Shaping Up: A public goal, a personal challenge

June Thompson, THE GAZETTE02.15.2012

Mark Schachter, right, works out on his road bike alongside Peter Brennan, left, and John Phillipson, right at Paul’s Cycle in Pointe Claire Village. “Racing is not my goal,” Schachter says. “I just want to build endurance and speed and get healthy along the way.”

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MONTREAL - He knew he had a problem when he got stuck in a boat. In the showroom.

But it took Mark Schachter another decade or so to bail himself out of his weight problem.

Schachter, 61, told me that he has set himself a public goal for a personal challenge: shed 70 pounds in order to participate in the CIBC 401 Bike Challenge. The 576-kilometre bike ride from Toronto’s Sick Kids Hospital to the Montreal Children’s Hospital in August will raise funds for the Piccoli Family Fund to benefit the Sarah Cook fund of the Cedars Cancer Institute.

But back to the first clue that he needed to lose weight.

“I swear to you this story is true,” he said. He related the story in good humour, but admitted “it was an embarrassment and humiliation.”

As he tells it, in 1999 a buddy asked him to go kayaking. At over 300 pounds, Schachter didn’t think he could even fit into a kayak. So he went to a store to try one out. The salespeople took down a display model for him to try.

“The sales guys helped me in and kind of leaned on me to push me in, kind of like a cork in a wine bottle,” he said.

Problem was, once in the kayak, he was unable to get out. “So here I was sitting in a kayak on the floor in the middle of the store with the staff trying to get me out, but since they had to help clients, too, they would only come over every once in awhile.”

A friend of his came into the store and ran to buy some Vaseline and baby oil in order to grease him up to help pull him out.

“So now there I was shirtless, in the middle of the store; it was beyond embarrassing.”

The staff eventually got him out by suspending the kayak on racks upside down and tugging him out until they all crashed to the ground.

“It was the motivation I needed to start my weight-loss journey.” And he did lose 60 pounds over the course of that summer, in fact.

Fast forward to 2011. Schachter said he wanted to get the weight off once and for all, and thought having a public goal might help. At the Beaconsfield Cycling Club, where he is a member, he met Judy Kolomeir and Steve Goldberg, owners of a corporate video production company. Both Kolomeir and Goldberg were so impressed with Schachter’s dedication and commitment, they decided to document his inspiring journey in a film: Down the 401: The Ride of a Lifetime.

Schachter calls it his own “personal challenge” and says he wants to do it “in part because some people will think I can’t,” but mostly because he is so impressed with the CIBC 401 Bike Challenge. Unlike some other fundraising rides, 90 per cent of the funds raised in the bike challenge go directly to the fund, no administration fees, he said.

“Gene Piccoli, who founded the event is a great man, and I really truly just want to cross the finish line and shake his hand.”

Schachter has enlisted the help of naturopath Sue Anne Hickey who creates individual meal plans for clients based on their lifestyle and body type.

“One size does not fit all,” she wrote to me in an email. “Eating the right kinds of foods at the right time for your particular type is very effective for weight loss, feeling more balanced, having fewer cravings, more energy, etc.”

And Schachter credits Hickey with his new eating habits. “I’ve really discovered a liking for things like broccoli and mushrooms and hummus.” He eats lots of fruits and veggies – “guiltless” foods.

He trains three nights a week with avid racers at Paul’s Cycle in Pointe Claire Village. “Racing is not my goal,” he explained to me. “I just want to build endurance and speed and get healthy along the way.”

Some of the guys he cycles with are in incredible shape and are added motivation. “At 61, my goal is to keep up and not have to get on the “sag wagon” (a support vehicle for cyclists too far behind).

So far the results are tangible.

He no longer wears Size 58 pants and the scale shows he’s down to 219 pounds.

“I’m aiming for 180 pounds, a number I haven’t seen since high school.”

And speaking of high school, Schachter has another reason to smile: He recently began dating the woman he was secretly in love with in high school.

“She didn’t even know I existed,” he said.

She does now, though. And perhaps when you hit your 180-pound goal, you could go back to that kayak store with her and make the experience much more enjoyable this time round.

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